Trailers having a steerable front wheel assemble responsive to pivoting of the trailer tongue relative to the towing vehicle are available for elongated transport lengths, particularly where the towing vehicle is a load transport vehicle connected to an auxiliary trailer. The steering capability allows the vehicle combination to better navigate off-road tortuous paths. While providing increased maneuverability in forward travel, due to the dual pivot at the connecting hitch and the front wheels, accurately backing up to and hitching with the trailer is extremely difficult.
Such combinations are common in military applications. One such application includes the military M989A1 heavy expanded mobility ammunition trailer used by the military for the transport of missile pods and munitions, palletized and unpalletized loads, fuel pods and bladders, and the like. The trailer is hauled by substantial prime mover vehicles including the HEMTT series truck and the Armored Vehicle-Mounted Rocket Launcher. During operations it is oftentimes necessary to accurately position the trailer. To overcome the inherent limitations of the dual pivots, the M989A1 trailer is provided with a manually operated lock bolt located beneath the trailer front wheel assembly, which requires an operator to crawl under the vehicle and insert a lock bolt into and out of holes that are aligned when the trailer tongue is in the longitudinal straight ahead position. Achieving such alignment requires truck movement posing a danger to the bolt operator. Even slight misalignment can create a hole location mismatch preventing insertion or removal. Further difficulties are encountered in hitching the trailer with the truck. The tongue is extremely heavy, around 200 lbs. and under current regulations requires two or more personnel to raise the tongue while the truck backs up to the trailer. The hitch component must be closely located to the hitching location inasmuch as the trailer tongue and the weighted wheel assembly are relatively immobile and can at best be only limitedly moved to compensate for errors truck positioning. The additional time for manually handling and positioning poses additional safety risks to the personnel.
It would accordingly be desirable to provide a locking mechanism for locking and unlocking a steerable wheel trailer tongue that can be readily installed on existing vehicles for selective automatic operation without risk to the operator and to provide a positioning assembly for limiting the personnel and time for establishing a hitched condition between the truck and trailer.